Background
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been implicated in a wide spectrum of cardiac manifestations following the acute phase of the disease.
Objectives
To assess the range of cardiac sequelae after COVID-19 recovery.
Data sources
PubMed, Embase, Scopus (inception through 17 February 2021), and Google scholar (2019 through 17 February 2021).
Study eligibility criteria
Prospective and retrospective studies, case reports and case series.
Participants
Adult patients assessed for cardiac manifestations after COVID-19 recovery.
Exposure
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection diagnosed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
Methods
Systematic review.
Results
Thirty-five studies (fifteen prospective cohort, seven case reports, five cross-sectional, four case series, three retrospective cohort and one ambidirectional cohort) evaluating cardiac sequelae in 52609 patients were included. Twenty-nine studies utilized objective cardiac assessments, mostly cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) in sixteen studies, echocardiography in fifteen, electrocardiography (ECG) in sixteen and cardiac biomarkers in eighteen. Most studies had a fair risk of bias. The median time from diagnosis/recovery to cardiac assessment was 48 days (1-180). Common short-term cardiac abnormalities (<3 months) included increased T1 (proportion: 30%), T2 (16%), pericardial effusion (15%) and late gadolinium enhancement (LGE, 11%) on CMR, with symptoms such as chest pain (25%) and dyspnea (36%). In the medium term (3-6 months), common changes included reduced left ventricular global longitudinal strain (30%) and LGE (10%) on CMR, diastolic dysfunction (40%) on echocardiography and elevated NT-proBNP (18%). In addition, COVID-19 survivors had higher risk (RR = 3; 95% CI: 2.7-3.2) of developing heart failure, arrythmias and myocardial infarction.
Conclusions
COVID-19 appears to be associated with persistent/de novo cardiac injury after recovery, particularly subclinical myocardial injury in the earlier phase and diastolic dysfunction later. Larger well-designed and controlled studies with baseline assessments are needed to better measure the extent of cardiac injury and its clinical impact.